Mana Party leader Hone Harawira has been found guilty of failing to comply with a police instruction at an Auckland housing protest last year.
He was fined $500 and ordered to pay $132 court costs.
The decision was delivered by Judge Stan Thorburn at Auckland District Court this afternoon.
Harawira was arrested last October when he joined protesters fighting the removal of state houses in the east Auckland suburb of Glen Innes.
He was alleged to have locked himself in his car and turned his music up loud, blocking a Housing New Zealand-contracted truck and trailer unit from leaving with one of the homes.
Police told him several times to move but he refused and they eventually smashed a window and arrested him.
Harawira pleaded not guilty and, during a three-day hearing that ended this afternoon, said he did not move the car because his headlights were ensuring the safety of three female protesters on the roof of the house being removed.
Harawira said there had been previous occasions when women had been "severely beaten'' at the Glenn Innes protest, something police denied vigorously.
The protesters would be safe as long as an MP had his lights trained on the roof, Harawira said
